Crusoe The Chicken Rustler Strikes Again!

This was the last thing I needed this morning, I have been a bit manic the last couple of days (uh weeks)  preparing for the Christmas onslaught. 

I let Crusoe out this morning at around 9 am, for his morning abloutions, but half an hour later he had not returned, this is always a worrying sign, if he is not back within 10 mins it can only mean he is up to no good.

Now Crusoe has a long history of chicken rustling in the village it started with sheep worrying, not good, especially as the mayor of the village is also the local shepherd we soon knocked that on the head with the aid of an electric shock collar, sounds cruel I know but you don't mess with shepherds in the Pyrenees, it's either serious measures or he will be shot.

That worked, but every so often he get's the urge to chase chickens, he has not done this for around 18 months so I have been lulled into a false sense of security, our land is impossible to fence off and even if it was fenced, Crusoe who is the Houdini of dogs would find a way out, it always amazes our dog owning friends, when we visit with Crusoe "No,  don't worry he can't get out, our land is secure"
Crusoe ALWAYS find a way out!

So, this morning, after he had not returned I went to look for him and take out the rubbish to the recycling bins at the end of the lane, at the same moment Leon, very grumpy old peasant (Peasant is not a dirty word in France) was coming up the lane, walking his dog, now Leon is not a big fan of Crusoe.
He has a beagle, who looks very ill and has been tied up all his life!  At that moment Crusoe chose to appear out of nowhere with a chicken in his mouth, he dropped it at my feet, still alive, but in shock, Leon, who had unfortunately witnessed the whole thing, started having a go at me, dog should be tied up etc. etc.
 First priority for me was to find Crusoe, before the villagers, in case they shoot him, Crusoe had run off and gone into hiding.

Second priority find chicken return to owner.  I eventually found Crusoe after much whistling, stomping around ice, snow and mud, cowering in the bottom field (he knew he had been a bad boy) and has been sulking in his basket for the rest of the day, I eventually found the petrified chicken and returned the chicken to it's owner, but she told me there was another missing chicken, MG informed me much later (after Crusoe had been found, and was safely in his basket)  he saw a chicken in the garden, but was too busy to do anything about it, Oh joy, all I can say is, Crusoe, for the forseeable future is under house arrest and will be supervised at all times outside!

Nail Polish.

I am a nail polishoholic, I have a cupboard full of them, I have tried nearly all the makes from beauty counters and specialist salons and in my view I think the best is Revlon Nail Enamel. They are highly chip resistant, have a good shine and Revlon don't have the annoying habit of discontinuing favourite shades. Not a lot of places stock Revlon in France, so I was delighted to discover that Galleries Lafayette do.

For ages I have been searching for the perfect sheer nail polish, as sheers go with everything. some makes tend to be very matt and can look grubby after a couple of day's wear, but Revlons sheer collection has proved to be perfect I am now wearing Revlons 007 nail enamel in sheer blossom, a lovely, subtle shade of light pink.

Talking of nails, I am using this opportunity to attach this clip from The Thomas Crown Affair, it is one of my favourite nail moments!  I don't think it would have been quite as sexy had Miss Dunaway not been so beautifully manicured!

A little bit of movie magic

I just had to put this on my blog, when I'm feeling a bit down I like to watch films like singing in the rain or breakfast at Tiffany's, with a very large box of chocolates and a snuggly blanket, they always make me feel better, this is probably my favourite dance routine ever.

Feeling flat in Toulouse

I had to pick MG up from Toulouse station on Monday night, as his train did not get in until 7.45pm, I thought I would spend a few hours shopping.

Toulouse is the fastest growing city in France mainly due to the fact that it is the home base of the European aerospace industry, the A380 Airbus is built here, it is also a major university town, the university of Toulouse is the oldest in Europe.

Now as I live in the middle of nowhere a day out in the city is a very exciting prospect, Toulouse is an hour and quarter's drive from us, so I don't go very often, I prefer to go to Pau which is nearer and a town I love.

I love the buzz of cities at Christmas, especially Paris and London, twinkling lights, loads of people milling about, lovely merchandising, stopping off in a café or pub with loads of goodies in shopping bags.

So what happened to Toulouse?  It's got all the right ingredients, it's a beautiful city, with fabulous shops, but something was missing, yes, it had the Christmas market in the main square and twinkling lights, but the buzz just seemed to be missing, was it because it was a Monday?  Monday is a quiet day in France, a lot of the shops are closed, in many respects Monday feels like a Sunday, was it me? Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.  I can't put my finger on exactly what was missing, but something was.

I plan to go to Pau next week, so I hope I can get my fix of Christmas buzz.

Paperblanks, wonderful Christmas present idea

Even in this technological age where we all use laptops, mobiles and electronic organisers to store our information, we still need paper and the hand written word. Last Christmas Belle Mere bought me the most beautiful journal from the Paperblanks collection, it has a beautiful design on the cover, 144 unlined pages, high quality paper (sourced environmentally), ribbon page marker and a memento pouch on the inside of the back cover, useful for storing receipts, cards etc. I am using mine as a travel diary.

They do journals, lined and unlined, address books, visitors books and day planners all in a huge choice of beautiful designs. They would make an excellent Christmas present, anyone would be thrilled to recieve, although on their website you can only purchase if you are a retailer you can get them here at WH Smiths, Amazon and in France they are available from France Loisirs.

They have so many beautiful designs I could have added them all to this post, but here are a few of my favourites.

Just me and the dog!

It's just me and Crusoe for four days, MG has gone off to Belle Mères, in Provence, to help her negotiate her house sale. I dropped him off yesterday at Toulouse train station, Crusoe was in the back and as we drove away he looked forlornly out of the window, thank God for the Tom Tom, without it, I would have never found my way out of Toulouse city centre, I even managed to go wrong twice with the aid of the Tom Tom, it's crazy the Tom Tom says turn left, I think, that's not right, so I ignore it, only to get lost, fortunately the Tom Tom re-routes me, I must learn to trust it.

After negotiating my way out of the centre, I decided to stop off at Ikea, to buy some fairy lights for the Christmas tree, as is the way of Ikea I didn't buy the fairy lights and instead bought a new rug/throw for Crusoe, as his sheepskin rug, (see picture) is now totally disgusting and being sheepskin is unwashable, the rug/throw is so nice I have decided to keep it for ourselves, Crusoe is not happy about this, as I have already shown it to him, in a it's yours kind of a way. I also bought a light thingy, official Ikea name, Stranne, I have friends who already own this and have coveted it for a long time and now I own one, it's totally useless, but looks pretty and I can hang baubles off it for that Christmas look.

I have four days on my own, and I am supposed to be cleaning and tidying the house ready for
the Christmas onslaught. I have Belle Mère, Belle soeur and Beau frère staying chez nous for the festive season and friends joining us for Christmas day lunch, I thought I was super organised as I have bought all the presents and have also got some boxes of cards delivered from M & S waiting to be written and sent, now I need to sort the house out, not just normal cleaning but the polishing floors and cleaning windows type of cleaning, eek.

I started off well, when I got back yesterday I took all the rubbish and bottles to the recycling bins at the bottom of the road, emptied the hoover and cleaned it's filter, which is a mean feet for me as I am as allergic to dust as it is possible to be, (does that make sense?).

This morning I woke up with good intentions, to start on the serious stuff, but after jumping out of bed and having about three or four leisurely cups of tea in front of the computer, nothing has been achieved, except ordering a huge amount of books from Amazon. I blame India Knight, as I read her Christmas book guide and now have ordered practically all of her recommendations. Belle Mere and Belle Sœur are big readers, so I had the idea of putting lovely stacks of new books on their bedside tables to go with the flowers, but I think I will end up keeping them all myself!

I cannot maintain housework avoidance for much longer, MG will go mad if nothing has been achieved by Monday night, so I will now have to galvanise myself, or I could just make another cuppa.

Listening to FIP

Just messing around on the PC, whilst listening to France Inter Paris, I got into this radio station whilst living in Paris, they play a very eclectic, cool, mix of musical genres and it's a great way to discover interesting music, they don't have any advertising and just occasional bulletins of news, traffic and local events delivered by "Fipettes" with beautiful french voices. FIP now also broadcasts in several other major French cities, including Toulouse, Lyon, Marseilles and so forth, sadly I am out of range to pick up the station, but I can tune in anytime I want via the PC.

How I came to be here. Part 4

My first impressions of the house, Wow! great views but Hmm quite a lot of work to be done on the interior and the garden, luckily most of it cosmetic and MG is a whizz when it comes to DIY so his work was cut out for him for the foreseeable future.

The house had originally been a village farmhouse built in 1873, mainly built out of the purloined stone from the then crumbling medieval chateau at the top of the lane (now fully restored with new stone purloined from somewhere else). The house had been bought as a derelict, wreck in the early sixties by a French diplomatic family based in Morocco, who renovated it sixties style.

For the first month we stayed at our friends holiday cottage, as the whole house had to be rewired, MG was in Paris all week returning at weekends, so I was driving to the house every day to get stuck into the task of re decorating. I started off in what was to be our bedroom the first job was all the preparation work, I remember endless filling of cracks and sanding down, the first attempts were umm dodgy to say the least, but with each new room I improved, Monsieur Carniato the French, Gitanes smoking electrician whom was single handidly rewiring the house would often survey my work, with a critical eye then suggest a new improved way of doing things, some which worked and some, well, dismal failure.

Once the house had been rewired, our bedroom finished and a Satellite dish installed so I could watch British TV and most importantly listen to radio 4 whilst working I moved in, it was a weekday, MG was in Paris, It was just me and the bats, I had a celebratory bottle of rosé and then, deciding the house had a good feel to it, ran round all the rooms whooping with joy!

The next few months involved endless decisions on tiles, flooring, white goods, etc. MG came home every weekend to do plumbing, measuring, yet more filling and sanding, we went to Ikea to choose kitchens and all the other bits. We also signed up as WWOOF hosts, and I had company and help during the week, from a succession of fabulous Woofers.

Luckily for us with the help of the Woofers we could do most of the work ourselves, it was a couple of years later, when we decided to landscape the garden, that we ran into problems, we needed skilled builders and stone masons. I have yet to find anyone living in France who has not had a story involving the difficulty of obtaining skilled labour, we had difficulty getting quotes let alone any works being carried out.

fortunately seven years later, we have finished the house, well as finished as an old house ever can be, they need constant work and attention and there are still a few works to be done, which involve planning permission, which is a bureaucratic nightmare in France.

So here I am typing this at the laptop, MG no longer works in Paris he has set up his own company and now works from home, we also acquired a lovely dog, I am sure you have noticed his picture, I will tell you all about him in a future post. I now also work from home. Living somewhere as rural as this does do my head in sometimes, when I visit towns or cities it is a joy to cast off my fleece and wellies for high heels and sophisticated clothes, visit lovely shops, cafés and restaurants, visit friends and do cultural things.

One always thinks the grass is greener but now, I think we are ready for a new challenge.......

iPhone love and the Puppini sisters

There has been a technical revolution going on in this household over the weekend, MG took delivery of his brand new iPhone 3GS on Friday, now I don't normally get excited about gadgets but all weekend I have been playing with it and muttering "amazing, so clever, so easy to use, gosh and it does that too" even the box it came in is a thing of beauty, I am completely won over and very jealous of MG because I want one too.

We have also been listening to The Puppini Sisters, they are fab, their style is a modern take on the Andrews sisters, retro, kitch, swing and burlesque, the arrangement on their albums (Betcha Bottom Dollar and The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo) is excellent.

How I came to be here. Part 3

Oh my God!

Sometimes in life you have to go backwards to go forwards and this is what we did. After much discussion, we felt that the only option we had was to return to the famous spa town in Northern England to regroup. Unfortunately I had sold my flat, because I had become fed up with dealing with unreliable tenants and insurance claims from afar (The lady upstairs had let her bath overflow, causing considerable damage to the ceiling in the master bedroom). So I had to enlist the help of my mother to search for something furnished we could rent.

Once suitable accommodation had been secured and most of our furniture and worldly goods had been put into storage, we moved back, now as you can imagine this was a huge shock to the system, the flat we had rented was small and poky, I can still remember the look on MG's face as he looked round the flat, which took all of five seconds, he needed a very large whisky to soften the blow.

This was a bit of a rocky period so I wont elaborate on it, I started temping which was pretty soul destroying and MG was permanently glued to the PC, working on his CV, trying to find work and getting hooked on Medal of Honour. Eventually MG was offered a position and what do you know! The new job was based in Paris. So he was now back in Paris from Monday to Friday.

This was when we decided it would be a good time to buy a property, we could not wait to escape from the poky flat, but where? property prices were going through the roof in the Northern spa town and we did not really want to stay there anyway, so as we had friends living in South West France, MG decided that for the next few weekends he would fly down there to look at properties.

One evening, he called me, very excited he had found something suitable with amazing views and within the next few days put an offer in, alas it was not to be, the french estate agent (crocodile) had some Belgian's interested in the property and they had put in a higher offer, MG put in another offer, in effect this became a Dutch auction scenario, so we went on holiday and forgot all about it, when we got back the crocodile had left a message saying Belgian's no longer interested, MG was by now thoroughly pissed off with the crocodile and he found out the house was on with another estate agent and did the deal with them, the crocodile did not even have a mandate to sell the property and we doubt the existence of any Belgian's.

So house in France nearly secured, we made preparations to get stuff out of storage, packed up and gave notice on the poky flat.

Soon we were on our way to a new life in South West France, I still had not seen what was to become our new home.

How I came to be here. Part 2

MG had recently moved to a lovely apartment in a hotel particulier, on Rue Jacob in the sixth arrondissement, so this was where we spent the first year of our life together, looking back I realise how privileged we were, living just around the corner from the three famous cafés, Les deux magots, café de Flore and Brasserie Lipp. As I finished work earlier than MG I often used to get a table outside Les deux Magots, order an aperitif, read my book and wait for him to join me. It was bliss, I became a real left bank girl, spending hours exploring and wandering around the labyrinth of streets in the Latin quarter. We did a lot of shopping, wining and dining and at weekends when we didn't have friends staying, we would often get out of the city and explore new places such as Deauville, Hornfleur, St Malo, Fontainbleu, The Loire and lots of other places.

After about a year the contract was up on our apartment and we had to look for another. Now anybody who has rented an appartment in Paris will know this is easier said than done, you see one advertised, either in the paper, Fusac or through an immoblier, then you usually turn up to a mass viewing, and if you want it, you more or less have to decide on the spot. Most importantly you need to have all the right paperwork with you, proof of earnings, ID, references etc. so that the agent can decide who is the most suitable, earns the most money etc. It took a while and a few viewings to get our duplicate packs spot on, then either MG or myself whoever was nearer and available would go to a viewing and if it looked promising call the other and describe it. Rue Jacob was a hard act to follow but many viewings later we moved into an apartment on Rue Lord Byron (Great name) in the eighth, Just off the Champs Elysées.

The apartment was lovely, however I had become attached to the left Bank and most people who live in Paris hardly ever go on the Champ as it can be a tourist trap and most of the establishments on the Champ are overrated and overpriced.

Shortly after moving I got a new job, miles out of central Paris, I had to get the RER to Massy-Palaiseu and then take a special coach to the industrial Park where the office was, this took about an hour each way. The good news was the company paid half my travel costs and gave me a book of luncheon vouchers, worth around €120.00 a month, as the only eating establishment in the industrial park was a Buffalo Grill, I took a packed lunch and blew the entire book every month, in a fancy restaurant (Just about all restaurants in France, from the most humble to the grandest, accept luncheon vouchers) and treated MG to a slap up meal.

At the end of our second year, disaster struck, MG'S work contract was not renewed and the bottom had fallen out of his industry, so he was finding it difficult to find a new position. We could no longer afford to stay at the apartment.



Some of Samplers favourite resturants in Paris

• Brasserie Galopin - 40 Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, 75002, Metro Bourse.
• Brasserie Ille Saint Louis - 55 Quai Bourbon, 75004, Metro St Michel, Notre Dame.
  
• La Coupole - 102, bd du Montparnasse, 75014, Metro Montparnasse
  
• Le Train Bleu, Gare de Lyon, 75012, Metro Gare de Lyon
  

How I came to be here. Part 1

Me and Monsieur Grognon got together about 11 years ago, at the time I was living in a well known spa town in Northern England and MG had been living and working in Paris for two years, we had known each other for ages, but through mutual friends and finding ourselves both attracted to each other and available, one weekend whilst MG was over, visiting the mutual friends, we finally got it together, and after a night of passion, exchanged phone numbers.

MG returned to Paris, after trying to play it cool for two weeks, he finally called and invited me over to Paris for the weekend, I packed my weekend bag and off I trotted. A pattern began to emerge for the next year, once a month I went to visit him in Paris for weekends and occasionally he would visit me in the UK, but lets face it Paris is much more romantic than Northern England!

After about a year, things came to a head, having beaten off the competition, yes MG had been keeping his options open, with various floozy's most of which were of the trolley dolly persuasion (apologies to all cabin crew, but they were floozy's) eventually I managed to secure a job in Paris, and persuaded MG, a huge commitment phobe, that it would be a very good idea if we lived together, and see how it went. I rented out my flat, packed two very large suitcases and off I went without a backwards glance.

Dear Santa

Whilst living in Paris I discovered Diptyque, they have a wonderful shop on Boulevard Saint Germain, pure scented heaven! Their scented candles are the Rolls Royce of candles hence the rather expensive price tag of €40.00 and €50.00 for special editions, boy are they worth it, the subtle fragrance permeates rooms making them smell beautiful and they last for ages.

They do have stockists in most cities, although it is a bit difficult to obtain one of these gorgalicious items of luxury, if like me, you live in the middle of nowhere, but I have just discovered that you can buy them mail order from le Bon Marché.

So if your feeling flush and fancy a luxury splurge either as a gift or just to cheer yourself up this is the perfect solution; Oh, if Santa's listening, Feu de Bois is my favourite!

Just rambling really

Today has been a good day, the sun has just set and the mountains are clearly outlined against the darkening sky. I woke up this morning feeling content and happy which is unusual especially as yesterday we spent the afternoon and evening with good friends eating and drinking copious amounts of wine, I should by rights have a stonking hangover but maybe the fact that we got home before 10pm and the soluble paracetamol washed down with litres of water helped.

The reason for this happy state of affairs is the weather, it is glorious to wake up and look at the view from bed when the sun is shining and the snow capped mountains are so crisp that you feel you can touch them. The temperature has been in the low twenties all day which is pretty good for mid November.

Of course nothing much happened today, which is where my discontent lies, NOTHING ever bloody happens here life just seems to slip by, I know I am being a bit whiny and should go out and make things happen etc. But honestly there is nothing to do after all daily chores are taken care of except walking, cycling and outdoor pursuits, it is very hilly, and we are talking steep!
(actually this is lie, there is always plenty to do in the house and garden but I am very lazy and always put off what I can do today, tomorrow)

The nearest town is a ten minute drive, it is not particularly pretty although they do their best in the summer with beautiful floral displays, in fact the town actually looks like it was bombed in the second world war, and then rebuilt with extremely ugly 50s 60s architecture but this is not the case. The town has not got one decent restaurant, cafe or bar (A handful of poor ones) it has got a few decent shops and lots of opticians (not with a practicing optician, you have to go to a big town for that, just frames and lenses) and for some inexplicable reason 25 hairdressing salons, do hairdressers get some kind of tax break in France?

Anyway you get the picture, please excuse my ramblings, but I am a maiden blogger, I will improve. Think I will go and pour Monsieur Grognon and myself a large glass of Vin rouge, look in the fridge for something to rustle up for dinner and settle down in front of the box for the evening.